Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth: The Asian Experience Peter Warr

Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth: The Asian Experience Peter Warr Abstract. The Asian experience of poverty reduction has varied widely. Over recent decades the economies of East and Southeast Asia have achieved large reductions in absolute poverty incidence, but in South Asia the achievement has generally been less impressive. This paper examines the relationship between these outcomes and the rate of economic growth, both in aggregate and in the agricultural, industrial, and services sectors. It uses available data on the headcount measure of poverty incidence in India; Indonesia; Malaysia; Philippines; Thailand; and Taipei,China over the period from the 1960s to the 1990s, in aggregate and in both rural and urban areas. It then uses this data set to analyze the economic determinants of changes in poverty incidence and attempts to explain the differences in the country outcomes that are obtained. The evidence supports the view that the overall rate of economic growth is much more important than its sectoral composition. Introduction I f policies are to be designed to reduce absolute poverty most effectively, much remains to be understood about the causes of poverty and the conditions that lead to its reduction. For example, it is now well established that the rate of economic growth is a significant determinant of the rate at which poverty declines over time. However, it seems likely that the effectiveness of overall growth as an engine of poverty reduction varies from one country to another, and may also vary from time to time (World Bank 1996, 200). We wish to know not only whether economic growth is associated with poverty reduction, but also the degree to which the nature of the economic growth also matters. Assuming it does, we then wish to know which kinds of growth are most conducive to reducing poverty. Peter Warr is Director of the Poverty Research Centre and the John Crawford Professor of Agricultural Economics at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia. Asian Development Review, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 131-147 2000 Asian Development Bank

132 Asian Development Review The present paper looks at three regions of Asia with these issues in mind. It studies the relationship between changes in the headcount measure of absolute poverty incidence and the rate of economic growth in South Asia (India); East Asia (Taipei,China); and four countries of Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand). The data cover the period from the 1960s to the 1990s. The above six economies were chosen for their wide geographical coverage and for the availability of data on aggregate poverty incidence covering a significant number of years in each case. Average rates of poverty reduction differed substantially in these three regions. In India the incidence of absolute poverty declined from 60 percent of the total population in 1957 to 41 percent in 1992 (Table 1), an average annual rate of reduction of 0.7 percent. The comparable rate of reduction for Taipei,China was 1.6 p ercent per year, and for Southeast Asia the average rate was 1.4 percent (Indonesia 1.4, Malaysia 1.6, Philippines 0.9 percent, and Thailand 1.9). The growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) per person followed a pattern roughly similar to these data on poverty incidence (World Bank 1993). The growth rates of real GDP per person, covering the same periods as the poverty data above were: India 1.9; Taipei,China 6.9; and Southeast Asia 3.5 percent (Indonesia 4.2, Malaysia 4.3, Philippines 1.1 percent, Thailand 4.2). Nevertheless, crude correlations between average GDP growth rates and average rates of poverty reduction, extending over long periods of time, do not necessarily indicate that the differences in GDP growth rates caused the differences in rates of poverty reduction. The limited availability of data that may support statistical analysis has been an impediment to the systematic study of poverty incidence. Some recent studies have attempted to explore the relationships involved by analyzing cross-sectional data sets involving average rates of poverty reduction and growth across many countries, or across regions or households for individual countries, while others have attempted to assemble long-term time series data sets on poverty incidence for individual countries. This paper begins with the time series approach, and then pools data for different economies to increase the number of observations available for analysis. The exercise amounts to testing whether year-to-year fluctuations in GDP growth rates are associated with similar year-to-year fluctuations in rates of reduction in poverty incidence. The second section reviews the data to be studied and the third section summarizes the analytical approach to be used. The fourth section describes the results and the fifth section concludes.

Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth: The Asian Experience 133 Poverty and Growth: India; Taipei,China; and Southeast Asia Figures 1 to 6 and Table 1 present the data on aggregate poverty incidence and its rural and urban components in the six Asian economies. Significant poverty reduction has been achieved in all six economies but the rate of reduction in Taipei,China and in each of the four countries of Southeast Asia was larger than that in India. First, we discuss the decomposition of the data on poverty incidence themselves. Table 1 shows the results of this decomposition. All results shown in this table are evaluated at the mean values of the data set. For example, the mean annual change in the aggregate level of poverty incidence for Thailand was -1.9 percentage points per year (i.e., an annual reduction, on average, from numbers like 20 percent to numbers like 18.1 percent). Equation (2) above is an identity and must apply at all points in the data set. It must therefore apply at the means of the data. The equation shows that this mean aggregate change in poverty incidence can be decomposed into three components: average poverty reduction in urban areas, average poverty reduction in rural areas, and average movement of population between these two areas. 70.00 Figure 1: Poverty Incidence: India, 1957 to 1997 60.00 50.00 Percent 40.00 30.00 20.00 10.00 National poverty Rural poverty Urban poverty 0.00 1957 1959 1961 1964 1966 1968 1970 1973 1978 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 Year

134 Asian Development Review 60 Figure 2: Poverty Incidence: Taipei,China, 1964 to 1995 50 40 National poverty Rural poverty Urban poverty Percent 30 20 10 0 64 68 72 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 Year 50 45 40 35 Figure 3: Poverty Incidence: Thailand, 1969 to 1999 National poverty Rural poverty Urban poverty Percent 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1969 1975 1981 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1999 Year

Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth: The Asian Experience 135 60 Figure 4: Poverty Incidence: Indonesia, 1976 to 1999 50 National poverty Rural poverty Urban poverty 40 30 Percent 20 10 0 60 1976 1978 1980 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 Year Figure 5: Poverty Incidence: Malaysia, 1976 to 1995 50 40 National poverty Rural poverty Urban poverty Percent 30 20 10 0 1976 1984 1990 1993 1995 Year

136 Asian Development Review 80 Figure 6: Poverty Incidence: Philippines, 1976 to 1999 70 60 50 40 Percent 30 20 10 National poverty Rural poverty Urban poverty 0 1965 1971 1985 1988 1991 1994 1997 Year Table 1: Data Decomposition: Annual Rate of Change of Poverty Incidence a India Taipei,China Thailand Indonesia Malaysia Philippines (1957-1992) (1964-1995) (1969-1999) (1976-1999) (1976-1995) (1965-1997) Actual Aggregate b -0.7-1.6-1.9-1.4-1.6-0.9 Rural c -0.3-1.1-1.0-0.6-1.1-0.5 Urban d -0.4-0.4-0.2-0.3-0.3-0.4 Migration e -0.0-0.0-0.6-0.6-0.2-0.1 Normalized (aggregate=100) Aggregate b 100.0 100 100 100 100 100 Rural c 48.1 71.2 56.0 41.2 68.8 51.4 Urban d 46.9 28.9 10.0 18.5 18.8 39.2 Migration e 5.0-0.1 33.9 40.3 12.4 9.4 Notes: a The decomposition relates to the terms of equation (2). Aggregate = urban + rural + migration. b Mean annual value of dp, the year-on-year change in aggregate poverty incidence. c Mean annual value of R R α dp, the year-on-year population share-weighted change in rural poverty incidence. d Mean annual value of U U α dp, the year-on-year population share-weighted change in urban poverty incidence. e Mean annual value of R U R ( P P ) dα, the year-on-year migration-induced change in poverty incidence

Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth: The Asian Experience 137 The second half of Table 1 normalizes the decomposition by dividing all values by this mean change in aggregate poverty (-1.9 for Thailand, for example) and multiplying by 100. For Thailand, reductions in rural poverty accounted for 56 percent of the overall reduction in poverty; in urban poverty, 10 percent; and in migration, 34 percent. Migration effects were even more important for Indonesia, but for all six economies reductions in rural poverty account for more than 40 percent of the total reduction in poverty incidence. The above calculations are, of course, merely descriptions of the data. We wish to know what caused these observed changes in poverty incidence to occur and, in particular, what caused the differences across countries. Poverty incidence and its changes over time obviously depend on many factors of which economic variables are only part of the story and among the economic variables many issues aside from simply the overall rate of growth will be relevant. Changes in commodity prices will play a role, along with tax policies. The sectoral composition of growth and the degree to which it is directed toward export markets or domestic markets may also be important. Nevertheless, the data suggest superficially that the overall rate of growth may be an important part of the story. The data on real GDP growth per person are summarized in Table 2, covering the same time periods as the poverty data reviewed above. Table 2: Annual Average Rates of Growth of Real GDP Per Person and its Components India Taipei,China Thailand Indonesia Malaysia Philippines (1957-1992) (1964-1995) (1969-1999) (1976-1999) (1976-1995) (1965-1997) Total 1.9 6.9 4.2 4.2 4.3 1.1 Agriculture 0.4 0.1 2.0 1.8 1.3 0.3 Industry 4.4 7.6 8.0 6.6 6.4 1.9 Services 4.3 7.5 5.3 5.2 5.0 1.6 India s rate of GDP growth was the lowest, as was its rate of poverty reduction. Taipei,China s rate of economic growth was the highest and its rate of poverty reduction was the third highest, after Thailand and Malaysia, and higher than the average for Southeast Asia. Among the Southeast Asian countries, reductions in poverty have been achieved in each of the four countries but the rate of reduction was lowest in the Philippines, where the average rate of growth was also lowest. At the level of individual economies, a relationship between the rate of poverty reduction over time and the rate of growth over time also seems possible. For example, in Thailand poverty incidence fell throughout the period indicated except

138 Asian Development Review for the recession period of the early 1980s when measured poverty incidence increased; and again in the Asian crisis period of the late 1990s when it increased once more. We shall explore this statistical relationship in more detail below. Analytical Framework We shall review first the relationship between aggregate, rural, and urban poverty incidence and then turn to the manner in which each of these measures is affected by economic growth. Changes in aggregate poverty incidence may be decomposed into rural and urban components, as follows. We shall write N, N R and N U for the total, rural, and urban populations, respectively, where N = N R + N U.We write α R = N R / N and α U = N U / N for the rural and urban shares of the total population, respectively, where α R + α U = 1. The total number of people in poverty R U is given by N P = N P + N P, where R U N P and N P denote the number in poverty in rural and urban areas, respectively. Aggregate poverty incidence is given by R U R R U U ( N + N ) N = α P + α P P = N P / N = P P /, (1) R R R where P = N P / N denotes the proportion of the rural population that is in poverty U U U and P = N P / N the corresponding incidence of poverty in urban areas. Now, differentiating (1) totally, we obtain a key relationship, R R U U R U dp = α dp + α dp + P P dα. (2) ( ) R From (2), the change in poverty incidence may be decomposed into three parts: (i) the change in rural poverty incidence, weighted by the rural population share; (ii) the change in urban poverty incidence weighted by the urban population share; and (iii) the movement of populations from rural to urban areas weighted by the difference in poverty incidence between these two areas. This equation is the basis for the decomposition of changes in poverty incidence shown in Table 1. The last of these terms is described by Anand and Kanbur (1985) and by Ravallion and Datt (1996) as the Kuznets effect building on Lewis (1954). As the population moves from rural to urban areas, a change in aggregate poverty incidence will occur even at constant levels of rural and urban poverty incidence, provided that the levels of poverty incidence in these two sectors is different. In growing R economies, we expect to find that the rural population share is falling ( dα < 0) and that the incidence of poverty in rural areas typically exceeds that in urban areas ( P ) > 0) R P U R U R. Thus, the expected sign of ( P P ) dα is negative. How important the Kuznets effect is as a determinant of overall poverty reduction is, of course, an empirical matter.

Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth: The Asian Experience 139 We now turn to the manner in which poverty incidence is affected by economic growth and, for simplicity, we hypothesize initially that the total number of households in poverty, N P, depends on the aggregate level of real income, Y, and the size of the population, N. Thus N P = ϕ( Y, N ). (3) The incidence of poverty is defined as P = N P / N = ϕ( Y, N )/ N. (4) Totally differentiating this equation, dp = ( ϕy Y / N ) y + ( ϕ N ϕ / N )n, (5) where lower case Roman letters represent the proportional changes of variables represented in levels by upper case Roman letters. Thus y = dy / Y and n = dn / N are the growth rates of aggregate real income and of population, respectively. In the special case where the function ϕ () is homogeneous of degree one in Y and N, (3) may be written N = ϕ Y + ϕ N and (5) reduces to P Y ( Y N )( y n) N dp = ϕ Y /. (6) In this case the change in poverty incidence depends on the growth of per capita income. We shall impose this assumption and will therefore be estimating expressions of the form 1 1 dp = a + b ( y n). (7) The constant term a 1 captures the impact of factors other than growth, which also influence changes in poverty incidence. We wish to test whether the coefficient 1 b is significantly greater than zero and whether there are systematic differences between countries or regions in this coefficient. We wish to study the way economic growth affects each of the components of the change in aggregate poverty incidence, as given by (2). Ravallion and Datt apply an ingenious method for estimating decomposed equations systems of this kind. We have a four-equation system, consisting of (7) and: R dp R 2 2 α = a + b y n (8) ( ) ( y n) U dp U 3 3 α = a + b (9) R U R 4 4 ( P P ) d = a + b ( y n) α. (10) But from the identity given by (2), these equations are linearly dependent. Equation (7) is identically the sum of equations (8), (9), and (10). Of these four equations, only three need to be estimated. The parameters of the fourth can be computed from (2). It is therefore possible to estimate equations (7), (8), and (9) and 4 1 2 3 then to infer the parameters of (10) from the identities a = a a a 4 1 2 3 and b = b b b.

140 Asian Development Review Statistical Method Data were assembled for the dependent variables dp, α R dp R and α U dp U. For India and Taipei,China the data are approximately annual, but for the countries of Southeast Asia, they are not. Allowance must be made for this fact. Each interval between the data points indicated in Figures 3 to 6 is used to construct the change in the value of the dependent variable for each of the economies concerned, with the calculated value divided by the number of years corresponding to that time interval, giving an annual rate of change for that variable. These annualized rates of change then become the dependent variables used in the regression analysis. There was a single independent variable, rate of growth of GDP per person, and it was constructed on a comparable basis. In the regression analysis, observations were then weighted by the number of years in the interval concerned. Since the meaning of the poverty lines is different in each of the six economies studied, and since the structure of the economies is also different, we should not expect that the same relationship between poverty incidence and aggregate growth per person would exist in all these economies. Intercept and slope dummy variables were used to determine the relationship most consistent with the data. Initially, intercept and slope dummy variables were used for five of the six economies (all but the Philippines). Slope dummies for each of the four Southeast Asian countries proved to be highly insignificant and were dropped. Thus all four of the Southeast Asian countries have the same slope term. Intercept dummies were also insignificant for these countries, though not to the same extent as the slope dummies, and they were retained for all four countries but one (Philippines). The intercept dummies for the other three Southeast Asian countries are therefore to be interpreted as differences from the Philippines intercept term, which is the constant term for the overall regression. Slope and intercept dummies were retained for India and Taipei,China but only intercept dummies were retained for Southeast Asia. The meaning of the slope dummies for India and Taipei,China is therefore that they are differences from the slope coefficient for Southeast Asia. The estimated slope coefficient for each of those economies (India and Taipei,China) is obtained by adding its slope dummy variable to the overall slope coefficient for the data set (the coefficient for Southeast Asia). We wish to determine whether these slope dummies for India and Taipei,China are significant and if so, their signs.

Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth: The Asian Experience 141 Statistical Results Results The regression results are summarized in Table 3. The surprising feature of the results is that while the overall slope coefficient for the combined regression was highly significant (significant at the 1 percent level), slope dummies for individual economies were all insignificant, including both India and Taipei,China. What this indicates is that the relationship between the change in absolute poverty incidence and economic growth per person is significant and approximately the same for all six economies. That is, the results imply that the power of economic growth to reduce poverty did not differ significantly among these six economies. To the extent that the differences in the poverty outcomes can be attributed to economic growth, it is primarily not differences in the quality of growth that explains their different performance in terms of absolute poverty reduction, but differences in the rate of economic growth per person. Similar results were obtained in this respect for aggregate poverty incidence, rural poverty, and urban poverty. Table 3: Poverty Incidence and Aggregate Growth: Weighted Regression Results Percentage Change in Percentage Change in Percentage Change in Total Poverty Rural Poverty Urban Poverty Variable Coefficient t-statistic Coefficient t-statistic Coefficient t-statistic Constant -0.5-1.5-0.1-0.5-0.3-2.5*** GDP growth per capita -0.4-4.8*** -0.3-5.7*** -0.1-2.4** Slope dummy, Taipei,China 0.1 0.6 0.1 1.1-0.0-0.3 Slope dummy, India -0.0 0.3 0.1 0.6-0.0-0.8 Intercept dummy, Thailand 0.3 0.6 0.5 1.4 0.4 1.6 Intercept dummy, Indonesia 0.8 1.5 1.0 2.5*** 0.3 1.2 Intercept dummy, Malaysia 0.7 1.2 0.5 1.2 0.3 1.1 Intercept dummy, Taipei,China 1.0 0.9 0.4 0.5 0.5 1.2 Intercept dummy, India 0.3 0.6 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.7 R-squared 0.4 0.4 0.1 Adjusted R-squared 0.4 0.4 0.1 F-statistic 15.5*** 14.1*** 3.2*** 15.5*** No. of observations 174 174 174 Notes: * Significant at 10 percent level ** Significant at 5 percent level *** Significant at 1 percent level

142 Asian Development Review It is notable that the response of poverty incidence to growth was approximately the same in all six economies in spite of the fact that the composition of their growth was quite different. Table 2 shows that the sectoral composition of growth differed considerably among the six economies. For example, agriculture s contribution to overall growth was quite high in Indonesia and Thailand and low in India; Philippines; and especially Taipei,China. These results suggest that the sectoral composition of growth may be a secondary issue. The overall rate of growth is apparently the overwhelmingly important determinant of the rate of poverty reduction regardless which sector of the economy actually generates the growth. Further research will nevertheless be required before any generality could be attributed to this result. Quality of Growth That the effect of growth on absolute change in poverty incidence is approximately the same across countries does not imply that the proportional change is the same. The estimated response of absolute poverty incidence to economic growth (incorporating the slope dummy variable estimates shown in Table 3) can be used to estimate the elasticity of poverty incidence with respect to the rate of growth of real GDP per capita. These estimates, evaluated at sample means, are as follows: Growth Elasticity of Aggregate Poverty India -0.9 Taipei,China -3.8 Thailand -2.0 Indonesia -1.4 Malaysia -2.1 Philippines -0.7 These elasticities should be understood as the proportional change in absolute poverty incidence relative to the proportional change (growth rate) of real GDP per person. The result that the change in poverty incidence per unit of economic growth is similar across countries implies that the elasticity of poverty with respect to growth is highest in economies where average levels of poverty incidence is lowest and lowest where average levels of poverty incidence is highest. It is notable that the more open economies Taipei,China, followed by Malaysia and Thailand exhibit the highest growth elasticities. The least open economies India and the Philippines exhibit the lowest growth elasticities. The issue raised by these results is whether the quality of growth, interpreted here as its capacity to reduce poverty incidence, is causally related to trade policy in particular and to development strategy in general. The evidence produced by the small sample

Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth: The Asian Experience 143 of countries considered here is consistent with the hypothesis that a more open trade policy leads to a pattern of development that entails (i) a higher rate of growth and (ii) a pattern of growth that is more poverty-reducing. The sample is too small to support strong conclusions in that regard, however, and much more evidence would be required before a relationship of this kind could be asserted. There are nevertheless analytical reasons to suggest that a relationship of this kind may exist. Consider the pattern of industrialization that has occurred in Taipei,China, on one hand, and in India on the other. Taipei,China s pattern was not supported by protection of manufacturing but by exploitation of Taipei,China s comparative advantage. This produced a labor-intensive pattern of industrial growth, involving a high proportion of small-scale and medium-scale enterprises and included extensive rural-based industrial development. India s pattern was based on high levels of industrial protection. This led to industrial development that was capital-intensive, involving predominantly large-scale enterprises that were urban-based and isolated from rural areas. It would hardly be surprising if Taipei,China s export-oriented strategy was not merely more growth-promoting, but also led to a pattern of growth that reduced poverty incidence more effectively per unit of growth than India s import substitution-based strategy. Of course, the issue is ultimately empirical. It remains to be seen whether systematic exploration of the evidence on this point supports these theoretical conjectures. The analytical issue that seems central is the demand for unskilled and semiskilled labor. Unskilled and semi-skilled labor are the principal resources owned by poor people. This line of reasoning suggests that patterns of development that increase the demand for unskilled labor involving more labor-intensive modes of production and high rates of productivity advance will produce more rapid poverty reduction. Determinants of Poverty Reduction The results confirm that the rate of growth of real GDP per person has a significant influence on the rate of poverty reduction. Naturally, it is not the only determinant. The R-squared statistics indicate that only around 40 percent of the annual variation in the rate of poverty reduction is explained by variation in the rate of growth. Moreover, the presence of a constant term means that on average some change in poverty incidence occurs regardless of the rate of growth. That is, the effect that all the nongrowth factors have on poverty incidence does not have a mean of zero. The importance of the constant term is further explored in Tables 4 to 9. These tables decompose the changes in poverty incidence at the means of the data set. We know that at the mean of the data, the value of the error term is zero. But the constant term is nonzero. The mean change in poverty incidence can be decomposed into two parts: the estimated effect of growth and the estimated net effect of all other

144 Asian Development Review influences. What Tables 4 to 9 show is that for all six economies the growth effect (the slope component) outweighs the net effect of all other variables (the constant term component). Table 4: Decomposition of Changes in Poverty Incidence, India Estimated (% points change per year) Constant Aggregate Growth per Capita Aggregate -0.7-0.2-0.5 Rural -0.3-0.0-0.3 Urban -0.3-0.1-0.2 Migration -0.0 0.0-0.1 Normalized (aggregate=100) Aggregate 100 25 75 Rural 48 7 41 Urban 47 22 25 Migration 5-5 10 Table 5: Decomposition of Changes in Poverty Incidence, Taipei,China Estimated (% points change per year) Constant Aggregate Growth per Capita Aggregate -1.6 0.5-2.1 Rural -1.1 0.3-1.4 Urban -0.4 0.2-0.6 Migration 0.0 0.0 0 Normalized (aggregate=100) Aggregate 100-30 130 Rural 71-19 90 Urban 29-11 40 Migration -0.1-0.1 0.0

Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth: The Asian Experience 145 Table 6: Decomposition of Changes in Poverty Incidence, Thailand Estimated (% points change per year) Constant Aggregate Growth per Capita Aggregate -1.9-0.2-1.7 Rural -1.0 0.4-1.4 Urban -0.2 0.1-0.3 Migration -0.6-0.7 0.0 Normalized (aggregate=100) Aggregate 100 9 91 Rural 56-21 77 Urban 10-6 16 Migration 34 36-2 Table 7: Decomposition of Changes in Poverty Incidence, Indonesia Estimated (% points change per year) Constant Aggregate Growth per Capita Aggregate -1.4 0.3-1.7 Rural -0.6 0.9-1.4 Urban -0.3 0.0-0.3 Migration -0.6-0.6 0.0 Normalized (aggregate=100) Aggregate 100-22 122 Rural 41-61 102 Urban 19-3 22 Migration 40 43-2

146 Asian Development Review Table 8: Decomposition of Changes in Poverty Incidence, Malaysia Estimated (% points change per year) Constant Aggregate Growth per Capita Aggregate -1.6 0.2-1.8 Rural -1.1 0.4-1.5 Urban -0.3 0.0-0.3 Migration -0.2-0.2 0.0 Normalized (aggregate=100) Aggregate 100-10 110 Rural 69-24 93 Urban 19-1 20 Migration 12 14-2 Table 9: Decomposition of Changes in Poverty Incidence, Philippines Estimated (% points change per year) Constant Aggregate Growth per Capita Aggregate -0.9-0.4-0.5 Rural -0.5-0.1-0.4 Urban -0.4-0.3-0.1 Migration -0.1-0.0-0.1 Normalized (aggregate=100) Aggregate 100 43 57 Rural 51 12 40 Urban 39 31 8 Migration 9 1 9 Conclusion This paper has analyzed the statistical evidence on the relationship between poverty incidence and economic growth in six economies: India; Indonesia; Malaysia; Philippines; Taipei,China; and Thailand. The economies were chosen because they each provide estimates of aggregate poverty incidence over a large number of years. Data on these six economies were pooled to determine whether the relationship between the rate of growth and the rate at which absolute poverty incidence declined was different among the six. The somewhat surprising result was

Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth: The Asian Experience 147 that the effect that a unit of growth of real GDP per person has on the decline of total poverty incidence was very similar across the six economies. The surprise arises from the fact that the sectoral composition of growth was very different for the six economies. For example, the contribution of agriculture to overall growth differed widely. The above results suggest that the sectoral composition of growth may be a less important issue in determining its poverty-reducing capacity than was previously thought. Further research would be needed before any generality could be attributed to results of this kind. But if these results are confirmed, their implications could be considerable. They would imply that policies intended to influence the sectoral composition of growth on the grounds that, say, growth of agriculture is more poverty-reducing than growth in other sectors could actually reduce the rate at which poverty declines if these policies have the effect of reducing the rate of overall growth. References Anand, S., and S. M. R. Kanbur, 1985. Poverty under the Kuznets Process. Economic Journal 95(March): 42-50. Lewis, W. A., 1954. Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labour. The Manchester School 22(May):139-91. Ravallion, M., and G. Datt, 1996. How Important to India's Poor Is the Sectoral Composition of Economic Growth? World Bank Economic Review 10: 1-25. World Bank, 1993. East Asia s Economic Miracle. New York: Oxford University Press., 1996. Poverty Reduction and the World Bank: Progress and Challenges in the 1990s. The World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2000. World Development Report 2000/2001. The World Bank, Washington, D.C.